Hades Memoirs: In The Line Of Duty
by enRAGEd
Summary: Marvin Branagh. One of the last survivors of the Raccoon Police Department reflects on the valour of the men who died fulfilling their duty to protect and serve, and the similar fate that now awaits him. DSC-verse.


**Resident Evil: The Hades Memoirs**

**Marvin Branagh - In The Line of Duty**

Marvin had been sitting against the fountain for a long time, the sole survivor of the massacre that had taken place in the main hall of the R.P.D's Central Precinct. He didn't know how long he'd been there, but the wound in his shoulder had already stopped bleeding, and the cold, hard stone to his back had made his muscles stiff. But then, maybe he had blood loss to thank for that. He wanted to stand up and stretch, to ward away the creeping numbness in his body. It scared him, but he felt so lethargic that he couldn't muster the energy to move from his position. That scared him even more.

Around him lay the bodies of the city's people, somehow turned to shambling corpses hungry for flesh, their blood cooling on the cold tiles. Some were missing limbs, others whole strips of flesh; some even wore their dangling, bile-slick organs like gory medallions from their chests and stomachs. Now they were all immobile, bullets holes puckering the skin of their foreheads, crimson fluid trailing down the slack, peeling flesh of their faces and pooling in their glazed eyes. Among them were his colleagues, fellow uniformed officers of the law whose grim duty to hold the building's front entrance had claimed their lives. He hadn't been able to save them; he hadn't even been able to save himself.

They'd fought on, even when it looked hopeless, even as they died one after the other, either killed outright by the zombies or, if they were bitten or scratched, turning _into_ them. None of them had shirked their responsibility to the city, and he was honoured to have served alongside them during this disaster. He was proud of them, each and every one of them, and he was glad to have lived, if only so that he could remember them for what they were - heroes.

He had been slipping in and out of consciousness for what felt like hours now, but he didn't have any sense of how much time had really passed. It didn't seem to matter quite so much anymore. His duty was done; the zombies had failed to breach the main hall, even if it had cost them a dozen lives, including his own. He hadn't seen a single one of the roaming undead since the final wave had fallen upon them, since the last of his colleagues had perished, since he himself had been wounded.

He'd managed to put down the last of the invaders, even with the ragged hole in his shoulder, and thrown the heavy front doors shut, but then he'd collapsed, unable to keep himself upright any longer. He felt tired, drained, the battle having taken the ultimate toll on him. All he'd been able to do was crawl into place next to the fountain and wait, holding a vigil over the main entrance until his injury claimed his life too. He was pleased to at least have the opportunity to rest, instead of fighting constantly for his life.

He was so out of it that he didn't notice the pair of newcomers as they entered the hall, echoing footsteps turning to sticky tearing noises as they stepped in puddles of congealing gore. It wasn't until they were standing right beside him that he realised they were even there.

His head snapped up, his gun coming around to aim at the closest, a man in his early twenties, a fellow cop in the outfit of the city's Riot Squad. At his shoulder stood a young woman, about the same age, clad in a leather biker suit, her jacket unzipped at the front. They both jumped back, semi-automatic pistols coming around to centre on his head. He smiled weakly and thumbed forward the hammer, letting his weapon fall into his lap.

"Wish I'd been that fast before," he muttered, his head falling forward, a groan escaping his lips when he realised how much moving his injured arm had hurt. He hadn't thought it could anymore, but twisting the shredded muscles had been like throwing gasoline on a fire.

"What the hell happened here?" the other male asked, sliding his handgun into the holster on his hip and kneeling down beside him, putting a hand on his undamaged shoulder.

Marvin looked up, peering at his features through a haze of pain and fatigue. He recognised him from somewhere, and he sat for a few moments trying to figure out where. The gears in his head felt slow, even to him, but eventually he found what he was looking for, a mental image of a stack of files that had been slapped on his desk just over a week ago. It had been a transfer request, complete with all the other paperwork that he'd needed to sign off on as Sergeant - locker requisition form, sidearm issue, shift rotation. He remembered the name on the header: Leon Scott Kennedy.

"You're the new guy, right?" he grunted, and Leon nodded, "sorry we didn't have time to clean the place up for you. Things've been kind of busy."

"You should save your breath," the woman insisted, stooping next to him as well, "we need to get that wound taken care of."

"Forget about me," he said, pushing her gloved hand away as she reached for him, though he didn't imagine his feeble shove was the reason she decided to back off.

He drew in a deep breath, groaning as the inhalation made his entire right side seize with agony. Breathing was becoming a chore, and what few laboured and shallow gasps he was able to take made his words come out in a halting series of whispers.

"I'm done. Finished. I don't have any fight left in me. Listen Leon; you're the man now. You're the only one left who can save any other survivors in this building. Get them out, any way you can. But, if you want my advice, stay off the streets."

"Wait, are you saying you're the only cop still alive?" she asked.

"As far as I know," he told her, and he saw the way her heart sank as he said it, "maybe Chief Irons is still alive, but that's a big maybe. Haven't heard from him in nearly a week. He took the Mayor's daughter to his office on the second floor and then just vanished."

"You don't understand. I'm looking for my brother. He was a member of S.T.A.R.S; he and his girlfriend were called here as part of some kind of special investigation. Chris Redfield - did you know him?"

He studied her face, looking for some kind of family resemblance there to back up what she was saying. He could almost see it, a similar kind of intensity, a determination in the eyes. He'd only met Redfield once, but he'd liked the guy, right up until an Internal Affairs inquiry had revealed that he and his S.T.A.R.S buddies had been responsible the deaths of half a dozen local cops. At first, their claims of monsters out in the forest had just made them seem even more guilty, like stoners blaming it on pink elephants, but now he knew that they had been right. Unfortunately, that revelation had come far too late to be of any use.

"Heard he left town weeks ago," Marvin told her, and her reaction seemed to be a mixture of relief and frustration, "listen, you ever meet up with your brother, you tell him sorry from me, on behalf of the R.P.D. He was one of the good guys all along; we should have believed him."

"Believed him? You mean, he knew about these ... _things _before he left?"

"S.T.A.R.S were the ones who first found out about them. They were called out to the Arklay Mountains two months ago; more than half the team were killed. They tried to tell us that it was the Umbrella Corporation that was responsible, that they'd made some kind of monsters, but we didn't believe them. We thought they were lying, or crazy. I wish I could let them know how sorry I am, how sorry we all are, for what we put them through."

"Two months? That lying son of a..."

"If there's anyone else alive in this building, we'll find them," Leon cut in, squeezing the Sergeant's shoulder in an attempt to reassure him. Chris's sister nodded resolutely, brought back to the situation at hand by her partner.

Looking at them both, he was certain that if anyone could help the remaining survivors then it was the two of them. "I'll be alright here, just find the others," he insisted, as they stood and checked their weapons.

They left him to sit by the fountain, safe in the knowledge that he had left the duties he could no longer fulfil to the right people. Moving as a fluid unit, they disappeared through the door into the west wing's reception area. He continued to sit, hunched, breathing shallow, for a few moments longer, feeling almost as though he were going to slip into unconsciousness again and never wake up.

But he knew that, if he did, he was probably going to turn into a zombie. That hadn't been a problem back when it had just been him, alone, in the hall, but now he knew for certain there were at least two other people in the building. If they came back then he would pose a threat to them. He looked down at the gun resting in his lap, his fingers clasped weakly around the grip.

Fear gnawed at his gut - fear of the unknown, fear of the oblivion that might well have been waiting for him, fear of never having another thought ever again. Dying meant disappearing. But then, whether he pulled the trigger himself or not, he was going to die, and soon. Besides, there wasn't anything left of his life now, no one to remember that he had even existed. It was like he had already disappeared. All that was left was to make reality fit the illusion.

Whether he was afraid or not, whether he wanted to die or not, there was one last thing he had to do in order to protect and serve, just as he had vowed all those years ago.

He looked at the gun again. It felt heavier than before, almost as though its weight was pinning his hand to his leg. No matter how hard he tried to lift it to his forehead, he couldn't even begin to move it. Terror surged through him once again, as he realised that he was trapped, conscious but helpless, inside his own body, unable to do anything but stare out through glazed eyes.

Even as he watched, blood ran in a trickle from his right nostril, falling on the back of his right wrist, but he could feel neither sensation any longer. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how loud he screamed inside his head, nothing worked, nothing moved, nothing happened.

And then he heard a noise that made his blood run cold.

The doors to the west wing burst open once again, Leon and the girl rushing through. He tried to yell out a warning to them, even as the rookie secured the entrance, even as his partner rushed over to him, but his words would not escape his slack lips. Her pace slowed, her anxious face growing pale as she came near. She leaned down and pressed her fingers into his neck. He couldn't even feel her touch. Instead, his flesh prickled, almost as though it were two sizes too small, a hot, uncomfortable feeling that made him fear the coming transformation.

The numbness had taken his body, and now it was beginning to take his mind as well. A dense fog was settling behind his eyes, smothering his thoughts, making him drowsy and light-headed. The sound of buzzing blood in his ears deafened him as the girl turned back to yell something to the man behind her. A second later, she snapped back around, jumping away from him and bringing her handgun around to point at his head.

Part of him should have been horrified as he felt himself stand. Instead, all he could do was watch as he rose back to his feet, just like the dozens of other corpses lying around the room had done. He felt the skin on his face tighten, beginning to peel away as the zombie rot set in. He saw, so much as felt, his eyes film over, turning into perfect white marbles in their sockets. Against his will, he took a staggering, lurching step forward, lifting his hands towards the young woman, his every thought pushed aside by the gnawing hunger growing in his belly. He had been denying that urge from the beginning, but now his mind was no longer able to blot it out with thoughts of duty.

He remained conscious long enough to feel the first moan escape his flaking lips, before the gun went off in the girl's hand, a bullet punching through his forehead. And then, as his body slumped limply to the cold, stone floor, he felt nothing.

-x-x-x-x-x-


End file.
